


Vertigo

by LordNesquik



Series: Night Reading [3]
Category: Nocturnal - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26555989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordNesquik/pseuds/LordNesquik
Summary: An example of gravity.
Series: Night Reading [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795237





	Vertigo

It was a shatteringly cold day in the Cage.

Hot air was supposed to rise – Pozaka was sure he’d been taught that, at the very least – so given that he was in the upper-most floors of the Cage, the cold more than likely meant there was no warm air anywhere.

The weather dug under his thick orange fur and numbed the tips of his large paws. Occasionally, the steel of the scythe on his back would brush against the back of his head as he walked, and he could feel that it was practically frozen. Its weight rested on his slouched shoulders through the straps that held it in place.

Those around him had more foresight and were swaddled in thick coats and scarves. Even some with fur as thick as Pozaka’s had something on. The streets this high were sparsely populated in comparison to most of the Cage. To his left, the smooth stone floor under him ended in a wood and rope railing, and to his right, a few buildings were tucked into the space between the walkway and the Cage’s wall. Those that had a sign by their door advertised various odds and ends varying from fortune telling to exotic spices.

Lost in thought, Pozaka failed to notice another body walking towards him, and the two collided at the shoulder. He stumbled, his scythe falling off his back and clattering loudly onto the ground. Pozaka noticed every figure around him take a healthy step away from the situation.

After a moment taken to regain his bearings, he turned around to collect his weapon from its dishonorable position on the floor. Just before he kneeled, however, the scratching of a shifting paw echoed into his left ear. His instincts kicked in and he spun around to meet the threat head-on.

Pozaka bared witness to a slender, brown-and-beige-furred woman drawing a thin sword from its sheath at her hip. She wore a dark purple cloak up to her shoulders and a razor-sharp grin. He barely had time to guard his face before she rushed at him, pushing the sharp edge of her blade into his arms.

“You disgust me,” he sputtered through clench teeth. Blood began to trickle from underneath the blade’s edge.

“And you me,” she responded smoothly, sliding her sword off Pozaka’s guard, and moving to slice lower. He took the opportunity to pull one of his legs up and throw a kick into her stomach, sending her tumbling away from him. He rolled backwards, grabbing his scythe as he tumbled over it.

His eyes landed on the woman once more as she took a few long strides away from Pozaka. He readied the blade of his scythe outwards towards her, but instead of charging once more she took three strides to her right and kicked the wooden railing. Her leg ignited in afflicted fire as she did. The railing was thrown over the edge, and the rope that connected them tore the railing off for the entire length of the road.

He took a moment to glance at the edge. Disturbed by the commotion, a cracked ceramic vase left out as garbage rolled threateningly off the empty precipice and into the Cage below. He never heard it hit the bottom.

“Can’t you let old sins die?” Pozaka shouted across the clearing. She didn’t respond, narrowing her eyes and flashing a wicked smile.

He opened with a charge, holding the handle of his scythe outwards and the dull edge of the blade near his chest. She held her sword by its handle and blade, positioning it so that Pozaka would ram his lower body into its edge. He met her sword with his scythe and they locked into a stalemate.

Pozaka’s face was hardly a paw’s length from hers. To break their deadlock, he turned his scythe so its handle hit her upper body. She stumbled to his left, towards the edge, and as soon as her weight was off his scythe, he swung it towards her.

She chose to fall onto her back and slip under his sweeping blade. Before Pozaka could even take a step towards her, she tempered her legs with fire and kicked them up. The sudden light and heat warded Pozaka off as she let the momentum of her attack carry her upright. As she met Pozaka’s gaze once more, she slashed the tip of her sword near his abdomen. He met it with the handle of his scythe, deflecting the slice so that it only shaved his fur.

Pozaka hopped backwards and spun his scythe’s blade towards her. She rolled to the side, but he maneuvered his scythe to cut off her path to his left and tried to pull her in with its blade. She responded by dashing right at Pozaka, fire taking her open fist. He ran forward and left, turning his scythe to knock her in the back. She lost her attack and nearly tripped.

He took the opportunity to pull his blade inwards, digging a gash into her right arm and reeling her towards him. Just before Pozaka could kick her, she regained her balance and put her left paw on the Scythe’s handle, shoving it under her and hopping over it.

He pulled his blade back in, holding it upright at his side. His presence was powerful, and the outline of him and his weapon in the shadow he cast evoked an aura of death.

“I’m tired of letting you rot into this putrid place,” she sputtered, clutching at her wounded arm.

“I refuse to die because you command it of me,” he shouted back, “especially for actions which I cannot change.”

“We’re both living with the consequences,” she responded, igniting her fists with fire.

“It is best if you leave it that way.”

She ran at him, both arms consumed by fire and sword pulled to her center. With only a few paces between his back and the long fall where the railing had once been, Pozaka decided to dodge to his left. She took advantage by extending her sword to the side. It ran against his arm and he reeled backwards, using the handle of his scythe to knock the blade away from himself.

Pozaka looked up to see himself and her facing down once more, this time with their paws straddling the edge. His eyes shot to the rest of the Cage below them, and the view of countless balconies and the ground floor far below them nearly dizzied him. He returned his attention to the fight. She was carefully advancing towards him, slashing her sword to try and force him off the edge.

He jumped backwards to avoid it and leveraged the longer length of his scythe to try and push her over the precipice, swinging its handle towards her right shoulder. She ducked almost onto all fours to duck underneath. Pozaka swung the handle back at her to knock her to the ground.

She didn’t move to try and stand. He dashed towards her, his right paw halfway off the edge. Before he could bring his scythe to bear down, however, she pounced upwards at him with fists of fire. He took two blows to the chest and stumbled backwards, leaning over the edge. Pozaka jammed the handle of his scythe into a hole in the rock where a railing post once stood, leveraging it to pull himself back from the brink.

He limped backwards and stood on guard, his scythe crossing in front of him. She ran away from the edge and turned to charge his left flank. Pozaka turned his scythe towards her as she ran. Just before she met him, he pushed her aside with it and moved himself to the left, leaving her running towards the edge.

She slid on her paws to stop and tried to point her sword towards Pozaka. He drew a leg up to kick her off. Her eyes lit up with sudden realization, and she made a split-second decision.

With a strong angled leap, she dodged his blow by throwing herself off the ledge.

Pozaka’s jaw dropped as she flew in a backwards arc. After a moment of suspended gravity, she plummeted out of view. He stepped towards the precipice and leaned his snout over, watching as she extended her arms and dove into the canal far below like an arrow.

He frowned, sighed, and took a few long paces back before breaking into a sprint and vaulting over the edge with his scythe.

As Pozaka fell, he saw the layers of the Cage flash through his vision. Countless buildings were stacked on streets of stone and wood, adorned with signs and stairs between them all. An entire civilization seemed to fall past him. Some floors had crowds of onlookers who had gathered after she’d fallen, and they now gestured and shouted at him. He pointed his legs a moment before he hit the water and slipped deep under the surface in an instant.

With a nose full of water, Pozaka was quick to follow the buoyancy of the air in his lungs to the surface. He erupted from the water, coughing and sputtering from his snout. A few passers-by saw him, quickening their pace as to be away from his plight. Pozaka swam towards the edge of the canal and saw a trail of water on the road. He wrenched himself onto land and followed it, crowds parting around his soaking-wet body.

Pozaka followed the path into one of the Cage’s alleys. The drab beige bricks around him became more dilapidated the deeper inside he walked and he carefully stepped around various pieces of sharp detritus on the ground. Adrenaline wearing off, he began to shiver at the aggressive cold that clung to him through his wet fur.

After a long and deeply unpleasant walk, he was stopped by a dead-end in the alley. Three buildings had laid their walls together, leaving an open space between them but no way out except for the gap in the circle by the fourth building.

She stood on the opposite corner as Pozaka, her blade drawn once more.

“You say you want peace, but you keep following me with that big hunk of metal,” she pointed out with a smug smile.

“I have a new path in this place,” he responded firmly. “I won’t let you continue to jeopardize my life with him.”

“So, you just get to walk away from it, then?” she shouted back, her temper spiking. “I live like this and you get your sunset, after what you did?”

“You live like this because you believe I must not live!” he countered. “Should you throw down your arms and move on as I have, you are just as likely as I to forge a new future for yourself here.”

“You don’t deserve a future!” she spat, pointing her blade at him. She took a step forward. Pozaka readied his scythe once more and she hesitated.

A look of hate flashed across her face, but she held herself back.

“To deserve, to blame; what do you gain from placing that upon someone? Upon me?” he asked, his voice low and almost empathetic. “Upon yourself?”

She squinted with contempt at his statement, extending her head towards him as she spoke.

“This isn’t over,” she clarified, her voice deep and certain. She turned around and boosted herself off the walls of the alley, pulling herself onto the rooftop. Water slowly dripped off her fur as she walked out of view.

Pozaka sighed, turned around, and began the long walk back to his destination at the top of the Cage.


End file.
